Enrique Fanjul—a commercial technician and state economist, former Commercial Counselor at the Embassies of China, Egypt, Canada, and the Netherlands—has written a A very interesting article about the importance of internationalization which has caught my attention and I would like to take this opportunity to comment on the suitability of Interim Management in these types of situations.
In the article, Enrique analyzes The four fundamental reasons and benefits of internationalization:
- Growth
- Competitiveness
- Market diversification
- Ensuring the supply of inputs for production
This answers questions such as:
- What are the main benefits of internationalization?
- How do we improve competitiveness through internationalization?
- What knowledge is needed to successfully internationalize?
In such a complex context for organizations, we We propose an invaluable facilitator: the Interim Manager.
Growth into new geographic markets creates temporary organizational imbalances that do not justify an increase in the structure, but Specific reinforcements to ensure the operability of new business lines or new work teams with the greatest possible efficiency.
Achieving higher levels of competitiveness and adopting technology efficiently, minimizing the stress that incorporating new processes can represent requires knowledge and experience that are not always readily available.
Entering new markets involves a lack of knowledge and uncertainty, which can be mitigated by having experienced personnel with skills in those markets to "soften the transition." This personnel is not always readily available within companies or can be expensive to hire, especially for projects with uncertain viability.
In all these cases, knowledge and skills for rapid learning are required, which not all companies possess, and even fewer are prepared to hire indefinitely in contexts of high uncertainty. The initial lack of knowledge when entering new markets can be addressed as they go, but this process can be short or long depending on the team's experience and their ability to efficiently internalize and integrate into the organization everything learned about the new environment: customers, suppliers, competitors, institutions, etc.
The Interim Manager offers the possibility of enriching work teams in an efficient and effective way, with well-defined and time-bound objectives, making it easier to face situations like those described above.